1. “Who are we playing Friday night?”
Local businesses close early and hang flags in their windows, elementary kids gear up in the school colors and the high school pep rallies get intense. Football is a way of life here. The Jr. High boys are bred into men through summer workouts and two-a-days in the late summer. Whether you played football or not, you will always remember those cool fall evenings under the Friday night lights.
2. “It’s close to Amarillo.”
It’s inevitable. The, "Where are you from?” question. We are readily available to answer this question in the same format, each and every time. When city folks ask us this, we’re going to say, “(insert amount of minutes) from Amarillo, just (insert direction) of it.” We also travel to Amarillo for the mall, theater and “going out/date” nights. If you get it, you get it!
3. “Pass that tractor in the road.”
Yes, city folks, it happens. I can guarantee, and would even put money on it, that if you grew up in the panhandle you got stuck behind a tractor at least one time in your life. If it wasn’t a tractor, it was a horse or maybe even some cattle, who knows? The interesting fact about this is that it doesn’t really surprise us. Our road rage doesn't ensue because in all honesty we probably know the guy driving the tractor! We simply put the blinker on (or not, rebel) and we go around it and continue with our day. As I was gathering ideas for this point I told a coworker and he couldn’t believe it. He thought tractors only existed in farm calendars and corn fields, not in small town traffic. Nope! Definitely not.
4. “What’s an H-E-B?”
This is a question we ask ourselves when we venture down south. Up here, though, we have United, Market Streets, Lowe’s, Wal-Mart and heck, maybe even a gas station if you just need bread or eggs. These stores have everything you need and if your town was small enough, you may not even have one of those! Yours is just a shack that has, “Ma’ and Pa’s Store,” painted on the front door. It really wouldn’t surprise us.
5. “Y’all…….”
Quick one, but it has to be included! Insert whatever you want after that, "y'all," but it’s just the way we were raised! You can try to navigate around “y’all” and even try to eliminate it from your vocabulary, but it’s always there and always will be, sounding just like home every time.
6. “Want to go for a cruise?”
Roll the windows down, turn up the music and let the summer breeze take over for the A/C. If you didn’t have anything else to do (those were the days) this was undoubtedly a go-to move on Friday and Saturday nights. Minutes could be turned into hours as these cruises got lost in the pavement of our small town roads. Usually these cruises ended up at the park where groups of friends could talk for hours without end. If you had a special someone this was even considered “a date” and could even solidify some real friendships.
7. “I miss home.”
We spent a solid majority of our lives here. We know every back road, have driven down every street and know every local restaurant and what to order there. We saw some people come and go, and then we vowed to leave ourselves and never come back. While some leave for good and others stay, our small towns remain just that, ours. This is home, the Texas Panhandle.
